Starting and Making Solid Food

I wanted to make a separate post about this one. As I mentioned in my 6 month post below, we have officially started solids. So far everything she's eaten has been made by me. Well, except for formula or course. I only wish I was making her milk too, but that's a different story ,involves a pity party, and I'm not going there. And also grains. I probably would've made rice cereal too, but we skipped rice cereal altogether and did oatmeal instead, because of her constipation issues.

First taste of Oatmeal. About 4 months old.

I started feeding her some foods off and on, no real schedule around 4 months. Kind of just a trial, practice and for fun. We tried certain foods here and there, but nothing very consistent. If I had the time that night we'd give her something. If she wasn't into it, we'd skip it. If she was cranky I wouldn't even go there. In the past I've let her try sweet potatoes, bananas (but stopped after my mother-in-law told me they are part of the BRAT diet and cause constipation), oatmeal and avacado. I was really putting it off until closer to 6 months, mostly due to her constipation issues, which we have now seemed to get under control after switching her formula back from Enfamil Gentlease to regular Enfamil.

Sweet potatoes! Just a couple weeks ago. And yes, that's sweet potato on her forehead.

Now she's eating solids consistently every day, twice a day. We're giving it to her morning and night. Kind of like a breakfast and dinner type thing. She's a lot better at swallowing now instead of making the sucking motion w/her mouth and ultimately spitting everything out. So she's actually ingesting most of it now. She's now eating everything listed above, and we've added pears, green beans, and carrots recently. I do stick to the one new food every 4 days/week deal to make sure she's not allergic. Looking at that I know it sounds like a lot, but it's been a couple bites here and there since she was 4 months old, not all in this past week. Thought I'd clarify. This past week the only new thing she's tried was green beans, which she's HATED. I mean, she was literally gagging on them, how dramatic is she?! I ended up mixing a little bit of pear in with it, and then she was able to tolerate a few bites. We'll keep trying!


Like I said, I've made all of her fruits/vegis myself. It's seriously SO easy. It's so simple. It pretty much just consists of steaming and blending/pureeing. I puree in my Black & Decker food processor, which I recently purchased for just $29.99. It works great! Once I'm done cooking/pureeing, I freeze. When freezing, I  usually don't add any water or formula to thin it out, I freeze it just the way it is. I add the formula to thin it out when I defrost it and am ready to feed it to her. You can freeze the food in ice cube trays and then store them in freezer bags. I have a freezer food system that I had registered for from Babies R Us. Someone bought it for me for my baby shower. I love this system! Unfortunately I don't see it on their website any more, so I can't link it, but it comes with like 2 dozen 2oz plastic jar type things, and even little trays that are great for storing in your freezer! So you can just grab a "jar" to go if you're going to be out. I've done that once now for her "dinner" when we were out at a family party this past weekend. It also comes with little sticker labels so you can write down what it is, and when you made it. Works awesome. I love it! The baby food lasts about 2-3 months in the freezer, so you can make big batches at a time, and it will last a while.

I get mostly all of my recipes and food guides from www.wholesomebabyfoods.com. It's such a great website, with all sorts of information about feeding your baby, as well as a ton of recipes! I especially love their food charts. For example, I'm pretty much following this chart right now:

Things I've learned about making food so far:

• Make sure to read and follow the recipes on wholesomebabyfood.com. There may be things you should know. For example; Do not reserve any left over water to use for thinning out the carrots if baby is under 8 months old as Nitrates may seep into the cooking water. Also, they give tips as to which foods have more pesticides in them, so you can use organic if you choose.
• You can use frozen fruits/vegis, but not canned.
  
  That's really it. I'm no expert, I'm still learning. It's pretty easy though. Cailin has liked everything so far, except Green Beans, which so far she will not eat straight up. I taste everything before feeding it to her too.I made plums this weekend, and they were so sour there was no way I was feeding it to her. I did let her taste and she definitely made a sour face. I even mixed them in with pears and the sourness over powered the pears! I may just have to buy plums/prunes from the store.